Reason as a Way of Knowing

Reason is a way of knowing in which we construct meanings together through modifying and improving individual opinions and ideas, in order to reach a plausible or logical conclusion. In other words, reason is the ability to help people decide what is true and what is not. Most of the time, reason is more commonly related to math and science subjects, where logic is put into place in order to obtain logical validity and justify claims. Through observations and experiments, we can prove, within reason, whether a hypothesis is true or not, and in the end, broaden and individual’s knowledge. On the other hand, reason can cloud knowledge to a certain extent, in the case of different culture beliefs as well as more creative subjects such as music and art. This is because we also rely on emotion and perception. Moreover, don’t we require the use of emotion and perception in order to gain reason? Isn’t there a difference in reason depending on culture and beliefs? How can we gain truth through reason when the will always be a sense of individuality and different viewpoints? Reason can help us gain knowledge, but only to a certain extent, therefore, there are strengths and weaknesses in the case of reason as a way of obtaining knowledge.

In the case of music, reason can be seen as both an advantage as well as a disadvantage when gaining knowledge. Emotion is also closely linked in the form of music, as it is an important asset in understanding music. As I am an IB Music student, I know that emotion is the main asset when composing a piece of music. Compositions are almost always based on the composers’ emotions in order to convey a message or a feeling to the listening audience. It can even be telling a story in the form of music, invoking it into the listener. In music class, we are currently composing music based on shocking images, for example: child abuse, child soldiers, and starvation. Emotion is required firstly to identity the emotion portrayed by the picture,...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...There are four main ways of knowing – reason, perception, language and emotion. However each one of them have their own strengths and weaknesses and only by knowing them will we be able to better use these ways of knowing to gain knowledge. This essay will seek to examine the strengths and weaknesses of reason as a way of knowing.
Reason is often seen as one of the most powerful ways of knowing – for it ‘seems to give us certainty’ (Lagemaat, 112). Reason uses logic to form arguments and conclusions. A benefit of reason using logic in reason is that it allows us access to innate or a priori knowledge – knowledge we cannot access any other way. One definition of A priori knowledge is innate knowledge that is not derived from experience but rather, are universal rules that we apply. (Cahn,Eckert,Buckley). There are several different forms that reason takes but these are mainly inductive and deductive reasoning – which will be discussed later in the essay.
A major strength of reason as a way of knowing is that the information we gather from using it is certain. This is a great strength because we are provided with a strong prediction model that we can build knowledge upon, thus providing us...

... EVALUATE THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF REASON AS A WAY OF KNOWING |
Word Count: 1,584 |
|
Reason is a priori. All humans are born with it. It is a way of knowing as it is used in every area of knowledge and in collaboration with the other ways of knowing. Unlike the implication of the prescribed essay topic, reason is not a distinctive way of knowing. To say that is an oversimplification of the complexity of knowing. Knowledge can only be obtained through the inextricably linked ways of knowing.
Reason comes to us naturally. For example, we purposely choose to recall past experiences to apply it to new and similar experiences. Most people value reason over the other ways of knowing. For example, North Americans have the “be reasonable” and “think before you act” idioms, and the Chinese have the “do not use emotions to act” idiom. Whenever I get angry or sad, those around me would remind me of those sayings. As can be inferred from the Chinese saying, emotion as a way of knowing is interpreted, at least by the Chinese, as the most unreliable. Globally, emotion is largely seen as the opposite of reason.
The importance of reason changes per person, depending...

...fact that this is a piece of paper can be disputed and even proved wrong.
Reason seems like an excellent way to work out the world around us. It uses all of the facts available to come up with a suitable hypothesis which can be tested and either proved or disproved through experimentation. This is the foundation of science, which is what the majority of people would trust. So anything proved through scientific means is therefore and irrefutable fact. Of course, in every experiment write up there is an acknowledgement that the data collected might not be completely accurate or that the interpretation of results might be wayward but again this is perfectly reasonable. It is reasonable to assume that despite your best efforts you may have got the answer wrong and another answer, no matter how unlikely, may be correct.
As well as reason being proved by scientific experiment it can also be proved by historical fact. For example, it is undisputable fact that on 30th May 1431 Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. That cannot be argued with, it was that date and will always be that date no matter what happens in the future and every history text or website would agree with that fact. So it is therefore illogical to start claiming that Joan of Arc died last week as historical facts, which are perfectly reasonable, tell us otherwise.
However, does reason really help us in our quest for knowledge or is it a poor...

...Key Points
Brylle’s Notes for Theory of Knowledge
The Four Ways Of Knowing
Perception, Reason, Emotion, Language
The world is a confusing place in which we find a bewildering variety of different opinions.
Our common sense picture of reality probably contains inaccuracies and biases that we are not aware of.
We acquire knowledge about the world through language, perception, reason and emotion, but none of these ways of knowing can give us certainty.
According to relativism, truth is relative to the individual; but the fact that we take seriously the idea that someone may be wrong in their beliefs suggests that relativism is false.
Since there are few black and white certainties in the world, we have to rely more on judgement.
An important aspect of good judgement is finding the right balance between scepticism and open-mindedness.
Two preliminary criteria for deciding whether a knowledge claim is plausible are evidence and coherence.
Since we are what we believe and our beliefs affect our actions, if we want to be the authentic and responsible we should occasionally subject our beliefs to critical scrutiny.
A good preliminary definition of knowledge is to say that it is justified true belief.
According to the traditional picture, truth is independent, and simply believing that something is true does not make it true.
Rather than say that belief and knowledge are two...

...﻿
Patterns of Knowing in Nursing
Patterns of Knowing in Nursing
Nursing education has evolved greatly over the years, in the mid-19th century, nursing was seen as a mothering and homemaking role; today nursing has a more scientific base (Peplau, 1986). Nursing is much more than following doctors’ orders and performing comfort care. Nurses must be able to apply different aspects of knowledge into their care in order to provide quality care to their patients. According to the American Nurses Association (2014), nursing is the protection, promotion and optimization of health and abilities; nursing includes the prevention of injury and alleviation of suffering through diagnosis and treatment, and advocate in the care of the individual, families and community. The purpose of this paper is to identify the four patterns of knowing and the importance of implementing them into patient care.
According to Carper (1978), there are four fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing which are essential for the teaching and learning of nursing which involve critical analysis of what it means to know, and the type of knowledge that is most valuable in the discipline of nursing. The four patterns of knowing are empirics, ethics, personal knowledge, and esthetics. Carper (1978) defines empirical knowledge as being factual, descriptive and ultimately aimed at developing abstract and...

...Blackmon/ Theory of Knowledge p.7
30 September 2010
Ways of Knowing and their Importance
Experts such as athletes, musicians, actors, surgeons, etc. have obtained knowledge which is difficult to describe in words and by language. These other ways of knowing, like perception, reason, and emotion play more important roles than language in allowing these experts to perform in their respective fields by gaining knowledge which cannot be passed on by words through their senses, emotional inspiration, and reasoning.
A way of knowing which is essential in these fields is perception, which allows experts to gain knowledge through the five senses, and learn by example, which in some fields such as music and sports it plays a bigger role than learning by language. A possible explanation for this is observational learning. Observational learning, also called social learning theory, occurs when an observer’s behavior changes after viewing the behavior of a model (funderstanding). In other terms, this is referred to as perception. In reference to sports, one can say that every aspect of the game is learned visually, although minimal verbal instruction is given through coaching. In order to gain knowledge through visual perception there must be stimuli from electromagnetic waves between approximately 400 nm and 700 nm which reach the eyes and the retina and provide what we call sight...

...﻿
Ways of Knowing in Nursing Practice
Erica Walters
Aspen University
November 2014
Ways of Knowing in Nursing Practice
Multiple ways of knowing are employed in the discipline of nursing. Traditionally, four patterns of nursing knowledge, or ways of knowing, have been used in the field of nursing. These include empirics, or the science of nursing, esthetics, or the art of nursing, personal knowledge, and ethics (McEwen & Wills, 2011). By combining these ways of knowing, a nurse develops clinical knowledge which guides nursing actions in different situations. The following case demonstrates the use of multiple ways of knowing in a clinical situation.
Case Study
A nurse on a medical/surgical floor is treating a 62 year old patient with an initial diagnosis of colitis. The patient has been in the inpatient setting for 11 days, which is far longer than the normal length of stay for this diagnosis. This patient also has a comorbidity of seizure disorder. He has not been compliant with daily ambulation orders, and acts largely helpless when asked to independently perform activities of daily living.
Upon assessment at the beginning of the shift, the patient is alert and oriented. He has no complaints of pain. His lungs sounds are clear but diminished in the bases. Breathing is even and...

...their daily studies. It is globally known that these laws were discovered and explored by both scientists, and mathematicians, and the very reason why they were discovered is that these great scientists had researched and come to a certain conclusion after performing certain experiments. Hence comes about one of the strengths of reasoning – one can reason and come to a correct final judgement with the date provided, as long as the data is logical and acceptable.
Thus, in applied sciences reasoning plays a very important role as it is solely due to the “reasoning” of certain things that today we can take the help of these axioms and theorem without maintaining any doubt in our minds.
In addition to the help provided by reasoning, to hard sciences, reasoning also maintains its advantages in the field of commerce and human sciences, because, in economics and business studies, it is very important to reason and reach a certain conclusion. This is because, when businesses need to do market research to find out whether they should invest in order to achieve growth, or launch a new product/improved product, they would research and do sampling in order to see things which are important to the business, such as the trend in demand for a certain commodity, or even the effect of certain external factor on the business, the business can find the reason behind the occurrence of the trend and can hence increase the revenues and...